Lair

by Carl Stubblefield

  In addition to feeling hyperactive, a familiar restlessness began to build up again. The deadline to hit level ten was getting closer and he was making decent progress. He also knew it was harder to level the higher you progressed in games, and assumed the same was true about his own leveling. He would prefer a cushion rather than leaving it to the last minute. Plus then he could worry about other pressing things. He wondered what level he would be at if worrying were a skill. His mind had an annoying habit of snowballing to the worst possible conclusions if he didn’t rein it in.

  Turning back to what options the Foundry would provide, he evaluated his needs. He wanted to fight some zombies with his new skills but also felt like he needed to expand and gain other abilities as well, especially something that allowed him to attack at range and stay safe. If the Foundry could make him some armor to help with the close combat situations, hopefully they’d be easier to down if ranged attacks softened them up.

  “Nick, are there any non-combat skills to develop? Like mental skills?”

  “There are many skills, but often they have to be found by trial and error. Until we determine the nature of how your powers manifest, it is more difficult to predict what affinities you have.”

  “Well, I know I have used that speedster skill a little, what about that?” Gus asked.

  “Yes. That is a good starting point, but you do not want to limit yourself. Those powers are all in the translocation family, which includes speedster, flying, and teleportation.”

  “Teleportation! Yes! That would save me so much time from jogging down the trail and back to the manor. Plus I’ve had some close scrapes, and I don’t really have a good way to retreat if I get in over my head.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Teleportation is a very advanced skill, so don’t set your expectations too high. Most supers need years to obtain the necessary stats and combination of skills. You have to learn dashing, flying, and dimensional folding, to name a few things.”

  “Buzzkill,” Gus muttered.

  “Do you have any experience with meditation?”

  “Um, no.”

  “What about with your music, are you familiar with a ‘flow’ experience?”

  “It sounds familiar, what exactly do you mean?”

  “It is commonly experienced when you become so engrossed with an activity, that your perception of time is skewed. You may be doing something for hours but it feels like no time has really passed, unlike how one feels throughout a typical day.”

  “Oh yeah, tons of times.”

  “That is what we are attempting to train. Your mind needs to enter a pliable state where you shift more into a right-brain type of control. The types of controls implemented by the left brain are too rigid. You need intuition to guide you, as the process is subtle and must be adapted at a speed faster than conscious thought.”

  “So what drills should I start doing?”

  “You jump.”

  “Ok… explain.”

  “I want you to find one of the long hallways in the manor, the ones that are tall and open in the center of the complex by the atrium. That will give you five stories of height to practice. You can eventually do this outside, but for now I want the floor to be as regular and smooth as possible. You’ll want a carpeted surface with low risk of slipping. I want you to walk and, at measured intervals, jump. At the apex of your jump, imagine pulling yourself a little higher and a little forward. Trying to get more hang time, and more distance from the jump. Try to make the effort expended per jump the same. This isn’t an Olympic long jump. You need to get the feel of how to anchor yourself in the ether. Depending on your affinities, you may do well or you may just get a good leg workout. There are mental drills we can do later, but start with this; it will help you burn off some tension.”

  Nick hadn’t led him wrong in the past, so Gus began to jump. He felt a little ridiculous, but kept at it. After a while he had to take a quick break for stamina to refill.

  I probably look like an idiot, but that’s never stopped me before!

  He recalled some of the bone-headed things he had done in his life. Some were dares from his friends, others were trying to impress others, especially his father. Heading to the initial entry hall, Gus lined himself up and began jumping with his eyes closed trying to visualize the ‘pulling’ that Nick had suggested. After crashing into a decorative planter in the big atrium and a fumble to keep it from falling off of its plinth, he decided he had better keep his eyes open. Eventually, he’d have to keep his eyes open if he wanted to fly or move like a speedster. It was hard to know what he was looking for, so he tried different things.

  He imagined energy coming from his core like he had used when fighting the Mantid and used Indi-Wreckt, but that didn’t seem to do anything. He decided to limit his focus on just making his jumps higher. Since he was unable to see himself, he could not get any feedback if he was doing it correctly or not. After a half an hour of different mental focuses and traversing the atrium five times, Gus took a break. “How long am I just going to jump around—" Gus started, then he mentally facepalmed for not thinking of it sooner. At first, he was hesitant to waste his precious songs, but a quick look at the timer erased his uncertainty. He created a quick playlist for Nick to play and began again in earnest. A chime sounded as the first song began to play.

  You have created a song chain! Success with activities related to musical themes increased by factorial multiplier based on quantity of songs in series. Song chains have a cooldown of 6 hours through host levels 1-10.

  The synthesizer tones of the intro to Jump by Van Halen started. It was easier to jump to the beat of the song. Life seemed to shift into montage-mode as Gus focused on jumping and lifting himself just an inch higher than his typical jump. Before he got to the guitar solo, he started to notice a hint of a longer hang time. The song ended and a message displayed along the bottom of his screen.

  Jump Around by House of Pain. Success rates x 2.

  The musical fanfare at the beginning of the song reminded Gus of leveling up. He started to get into the groove of jumping at a faster tempo with the song. The drill was becoming more fun, similar to dancing. Gus imagined he was stretching upward with the repetitive whistle in the song. The hang-time was definitely increasing and he was leaping at every other beat because he was mid-air when he would usually jump again. His stamina bar also started to drain at a slower rate, since he was using less physical exertion, but Gus noticed his MP bar start to trickle down a little. The floating must be utilizing some of his MP to maintain the effect. Excellent! It was working.

  Jump by Florida (featuring Nelly Furtado). Success rates x 6.

  Gus wasn’t familiar with how factorials worked, but those success rates were increasing like nuts. He was getting so much hang time now that he had a brief moment to spare while in the air. He started practicing a spear parry move while in the air albeit without a weapon. He didn’t have time to enact a full Counter-attack move, and it was difficult to coordinate both the actions simultaneously. He noticed his hang time dropped at first, but he was able to increase it little by little to the same amount by the time the song ended.

  Apache (Jump on It) by Sugarhill Gang. Success rates x 24.

  Gus felt like he had been double-bounced on a trampoline with the boost in height he obtained when the next song started. The slower tempo of the song fit perfectly with the long time he had in the air. He was able to execute a full parry and counterattack now, and alternated which side he threw his imaginary attacker to with each leap. The song made Gus want to watch Dodgeball again, remembering hearing the song for the first time in the movie. After getting comfortable with his parry-counter combo, the song shifted again.

  Jump, Jive an’ Wail by Brian Setzer Orchestra. Success rates x 120.

  Gus shot up so much the increase in height scared him. Luckily, the skill slowed his descent so he didn’t crash back down and break an ankle. The thought made him wonder what he would do if he was hu
rt badly. Better look into an infirmary in the manor and what it would take to activate it before he really needed it. However, the slowing effect as he approached the ground gave him confidence to try something new. Gus began to just have fun with the skill at this point and did forward flips, then backward flips. He noticed he was able to tug himself a little to one side or another if his jump brought him over one of the circular banks of couches that were in the center of the atrium.

  One Jump Ahead by Brad Kane, Disney’s Aladdin Soundtrack. Success rates x 720.

  Gus felt a little cheesy about this selection, but he liked it anyways. And that multiplier! Going along with the song, Gus added a forward direction to his jump, and minimized the height. He felt like he was in one of those martial arts movies where the ninjas leapt from tree to tree, defying gravity with their crazy, wire-assisted jumps. But this was real! Gus leaped forward, did a small wall run and leapt to the opposite side of the hall. Gus tried a dash forward, and felt the world slip by, just like when he first used his zoom-vision. It was disorienting at first, but after a couple attempts, he was dashing forward like a pro. A chime sounded.

  Skill unlocked: Dash (Level 1)

  Speed forward a distance of 100 feet or less. Distance increases with skill level (50ft +(n x 50ft)).

  100 XP awarded

  200 FP awarded

  Awesome! This would help a lot in getting around, especially when it came to traveling in the forest. Reviewing the logs had taken some of the time of the song and it moved to the last song before he was finished reading.

  Jump in the Line by Harry Belafonte. Success rates x 5,040.

  Beetlejuice! If Gus wasn’t such a cinephile, he probably wouldn’t know so many jump songs. Gus jumped and just hovered. With the massive multiplier, Gus had broken some gravity barrier. A chime sounded.

  Skill unlocked: Basic Flight (Level 1)

  Flight speed: 10 mph

  Max altitude: 5 feet

  Flight speed increases: (10 mph x n)

  Max altitude (5ft x n)

  MP cost: (200 MP/sec -5n MP/sec)

  MP cost: 195 MP/second

  100 XP awarded

  200 FP awarded

  195 MP meant he could only fly for around 1.5 seconds! The multiplier must be diminishing the skill’s MP cost or multiplying his MP pool to feed the skill. Without it, he would have to train a lot to be able to make flight a usable skill. Not wanting to get distracted again, he shifted from side to side with some strain. It was harder to maintain this than simply jumping. It felt like he was continuously pulling a very long tablecloth off one of those tables you saw in castles, that could seat fifty to seventy people. Gus could pull in different directions and the sheet would slide by, pulling him in that direction by degrees depending on how hard he tugged. Gus was starting to get the hang of it when the song ended and the playlist was done. Gus sank to the ground like he was standing on a deflating balloon.

  Gus almost began compiling a song-chain with the word fly, but then realized that he had a half-day cooldown before he could use it again. What other song chains could he make? Combat? Training? The thought gave him more hope that he could reach level ten before the deadline. A little over nine days, so that would give him twenty-seven, no, twenty-six more chances to level. The ability did say that the multiplier would change after level ten; hopefully he wouldn’t lose too much of his power-leveling ability.

  He attempted to float again, but without the boost of the multiplier, he only accomplished a jump similar to his second-song height levels. Gus tried to recreate the playlist again, but Wreck-ord only worked on original songs apparently, and the songs he had used were grayed out on his display. After it had been used, it wouldn’t activate again. That was good to know. While it would be best to save that ability for when he was past the easier early levels, Gus feared he wouldn’t have the luxury of waiting. He now had something to practice in his down time. He could only imagine how this would help him in his fighting ability as well.

  Gus made his way to the control center to check out infirmary plans and costs. He could’ve asked Nick, but that felt lazy to him now, since he was already heading to the control center. Plus, he could check the logs and see if there was any more movement from the Dark Nth.

  Entering the control room, Gus checked the facilities management interface. After selecting the Foundry and defensive specializations to unlock he saw the effect this would have on available energy. The yellow power bar shrunk by quite a bit.

  Gus saw that available energy points for manor facilities were getting fairly low. He probably would only have enough to unlock the Foundry and maybe the Infirmary, then would need to increase power to unlock more of the facility. Since the facilities were already built, he only needed to power them. They must also have stores of materials to use, so he wouldn’t have to manage that aspect of the facilities.

  He focused on the Infirmary description. To his surprise, it was only 100 FP to activate. It comprised a smaller offshoot of a larger facility, Hospital. Gus was amazed the manor could support an entire hospital, but he had no idea how many individuals would be at the facility when it was fully operational. No doubt it would be substantial, if the size was any indicator.

  Clicking on facility info, Gus saw from the description that the infirmary was similar to an ER, that it was mainly an automated triage station to stabilize people, but was limited in the scope of ailments it could manage. He spent the points and unlocked the infirmary. “Nick, is there a way to turn off the bio-stasis field and use the energy that sustains that for facility development?” Gus asked.

  “There are some functions listed under Alpha Protocol that are DNA locked. Since I do not find any of the controls under the menus in facility management, it is presumed that managing the bio-stasis field falls under the aegis of Alpha Protocols. Regulation of protective barriers and magma shields also should be under this menu, as they are conspicuously absent from the main facility control options.”

  “DNA locked to whom? The original Methiochos?”

  “That would be the most likely supposition.”

  “That doesn’t make much sense to me, that the manor and facilities can be unlocked by anyone with first generation Nth, but that some control functions are locked to DNA control. Wouldn’t it be better to make all access DNA controlled? That would prevent someone from stealing the location in a battle. Besides, if the manor has access to the quantum server, why doesn’t it recognize that I’m not Methiochos?”

  “The manor is not an Nth structure, and has only limited access to certain types of data. Just like the Dark Nth are limited in how they interact with the quantum server, the manor is limited in a similar manner. The bio-stasis field interrupts any communication with the outside world, so it is frozen and cannot perform any updates.

  “The restriction is partially a lack of capacity of humanity’s inferior technology interface, the other is enforced by the manor’s security protocols. Thus, the manor cannot access anything that relates to supers or their files, or personal information for anyone not uploaded into the memory. You were probably accepted because first generation Nth was a qualifier that the system latched onto, and voila, you get control. In the manor’s database, your current scan and information is linked under Methiochos’ profile for basic commands as a default, but his original DNA print must have been programmed in as a safeguard before he came to the island for higher level controls. He was most likely a cautious and paranoid individual.”

  Gus shook his head and growled. “Nothing’s ever easy. So if I get this right, I need a DNA sample from Methiochos if I want to unlock this Alpha Protocol and stop the volcano?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. But if the bio-stasis field is still in place, his body is already on the island; we just need to find it and take a sample. As long as we have a sufficient sample, even if it is decomposed, we can scan it. Once that is done, we can change all administrative controls to you,” Nick said.

  Gus’ mind flitte
d back to the way the Dark Nth decomposed so quickly. If he were dead, what would he do then? What if one of those creatures he had already killed was Methiochos, and he just didn’t know? His stomach settled as he realized that he knew the levels of all those killed mobs. A high-level super would be more than tenth level, and all the mobs were lower than that.

  “Any ideas on the best way to find him? Is there any way to scan for him?”

  “Again, no. You will need to explore the island to find him. Methiochos’ profile did not show that he had any flight powers, so he must have arrived on the island in some form of transportation, be it ship or flying transport. That means exploring the coastline and surveying any areas where there is a suitable clearing that something at least the size of a large transport could land will be a priority.”

  Gus felt discouraged with another obstacle in his path, but having at least a starting point softened the edges a bit. He was able to use a distance function of the island scanner and was discouraged to find that the island was larger than he expected. The coastline was two-hundred-twenty-seven miles! He would have to level up his Dash and Flying skills, and sacrifice some training time.

  “That would be recommended, as you only have two days to reach level ten, so maximizing activities to level is paramount—”

  “No-no-no, Nick,” Gus stammered, “that timer clearly says I have eight days and twenty-two hours’ time to level my Nth!”

  “Two weeks is the absolute end date, but by that time you will be prone and unable to move. You, in actuality, need to plan on finishing closer to one week after you arrived at the island to retain all your faculties,” Nick said.

  “Wait, what?! That would’ve been nice to know, NICK!” Gus groused, upset that he had only two days left until his Nth started shutting down. Then he wondered how much time he had to deal with the volcano. Gus felt the stress tighten his throat. There were so many things he had to juggle.